Local schoolchildren have worked with Community Rail Lancashire and the University of Manchester to creatively reinvigorate Burnley Central station.
Community Rail Lancashire launched their latest unique station project on the 13th of July 2017. In partnership with Young Arts Arriva, the project has revitalised, diversified and brightened Burnley Central station.
Working with the Year Six class at Burnley St. Peter’s school, we ensured that all the artwork would reflect the interests of local passengers and ‘passengers of the future’. By considering the number of languages spoken in Burnley, in partnership with the University of Manchester, we developed the project to reflect the rich diversity and heritage of the area. The children chose the languages they wanted to use, including English, Urdu, Punjabi, Chinese, Hungarian and Spanish.
They undertook sensory train journeys with Northern to generate vocabulary to express how they felt about their local transport networks and to record what they would learn about safety and train use. To ensure the project was fully immortalised, the film crew at Gravel and Sugar Productions was on-hand to capture the work; the video can be viewed here; https://downtheline.org.uk/projects/revitalising-burnley-central/
Artist Alastair Nicholson led the children through the creation of abstract artwork, where they used colours and shapes that reflected the words they had chosen.
The launch was a great success, with all partners, parents, governors and members of the Arriva Group attending to celebrate the children’s hard work and dedication. Gill Coyne, the class teacher, said, “This is the best project we have ever done, the children have enjoyed it so much and the artwork looks fantastic!” The Lancashire Telegraph will be publishing the story in the coming week.
